We always say "we only have a very few of these, so we won't go into too much detail" and then we pretty much always do. But not this time. Nope. Cuz we only have 8 copies of this. We got a bunch, but most sold before we could get them reviewed and listed.
So for a lucky few of you, here's a brand new, awesome split tape, LIMITED TO 99 COPIES and already out of print.
One side: Type records head honcho John Twells' ambient doom outfit, creating another haunting, crumbling, creepy world of doom-ed sound, epic and heavy, intense and soaring, layers upon layers of coruscating guitars, woven into moody moving droning beauty. The other side: new discovery Ajilvsga, another ambient doom outfit, a duo, one half of which is Digitalis overlord Brad Rose, their side is a thick viscous grinding sludge of blown out guitars, crumbling distortion, heaving slow motion glacial heaviness, that manages to imbue its buzzing creep with haunting melodies and strange blackened beauty.
Gorgeous full color covers printed on textured paper, each one hand numbered, gone before you know it... ----* ----* Compilations : ----*
Couldn't really think of a much better match up. Xela, aka John Twells, who runs the Type label, and North Sea aka Brad Rose, who runs the Digitalis label, both explore similar sounds and sound making in their respective groups, as well as the various releases on their respective labels. This might be the first time these two have shared a record, but hopefully not the last. Perhaps the Volume 1 in the title does in fact hint at future volumes...
Xela gives us two track of his particular 'electronic music', and it sounds, thankfully, much like his more organic music, a bit more abstract perhaps, a lot less doomy, but just as mysterious and evocative, long sweeping soundscapes made up of sculpted hiss, and buried high pulses, ultra minimal but thick and layered, peppered with buried streaks of feedback, fragmented melodies, what sounds like manipulated samples from other songs, all manner of glitch and buzz, deftly woven into two movements, the first, noisy and staticky, powerful and intense, but still strangely pretty, the second, much more abstract, beginning as a whisper, a barely there drift of found sounds, before drifting forward, and accumulating various sounds as it goes, building to a strange and haunting piece of active ambience, very cinematic, haunting and again, in it's own difficult way, quite lovely.
The North Sea continues on in the same direction as the last few releases, ditching much of the folk and flutter, for churning low end crunch. At this point it does seem that perhaps the title Electronic Music was not necessarily meant literally, cuz at least to our ears this sounds like big heaving slabs of downtuned guitar, glacial doomdronedirge, roiling swirls of rumble and buzz, eventually breaking down to something much more ambient, an ominous blackened drift, rife with bits of electronic glitch and swirling space-y FX, before finally transforming into something much more blown out and blissful, a sort of static soft noise jam equal parts Tim Hecker and Aidan Baker, smeared and blurred into one smoldering expanse of soft focus heaviness. Quite gorgeous.
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES. Housed in plain white sleeves, hand stamped, the text mostly in Cyrillic.
One of legendary 20th century new music composer Iannis Xenakis' most heralded works, "Persepolis" is here remixed by some of today's most adventurous musicians. Though the liner notes clumsily attempt some high brow hoo-ha internationalist theory about why the chosen remixers are appropriate for this project -- "Creative modernism is left with choosing between authoritarianism and religion. Hence, the inclusion of a second disc of remixes..." (hence? huh?) -- the obvious reason why these remixers appear is because, like Xenakis, they manipulate noise, musique concrete, and take experimental music to conceptual and sonic extremes. It makes aural sense; don't give me political wish-wash. Anyway, here's what we've written about Persepolis, which is on the first disc here:
Attention all you avantgarde electronic music fans! Important reissue alert! Iannis Xenakis' "Persepolis" was originally commissioned in 1971 as large-scale sound installation for the Shiraz-Persepolis Festival of the Arts in Iran. "Persepolis" -- Xenakis' longest electro-acoustic composition -- originally involved 8 channels of dense electro-acoustic material broadcast through the vast complex of the ruined Palaces of Persepolis along with a massive display of arclights, fireworks, and bonfires. Xenakis arranges slow tectonic rumbles and rough granular trebliness with extended passages of what could have been the bowed metal of Organum if Jackman et. al. were tumbling down a flight of stairs... "Persepolis" engages the visceral and the physical in a way that no other academic / musique concrete / electro-acoustic / minimalist piece has ever done before. It's frightening how powerful this piece of music is, even to one familiar with more recent massive electronic displays by MB, Merzbow, and Organum.
The remixers include: Ryoji Ikeda, Zbigniew Karkowski, Otomo Yoshihide, Francisco Lopez, Antimatter, Merzbow, Laminar, Ulf Lanheinrich, and more. A veritable noise fest. Construction site rumblings. Very difficult listening. If nothing else, this is a perfect introductory sampler of not only Xenakis but also some of AQ's favorite experimentalists. Nice price -- two discs for the price of one.
Picture disc!
The beautifully damaged worlds of Xiu Xiu and Grouper are magically melded together on this limited edition ep. The trademark drugged out dreamy drones of Liz Harris aka Grouper perfectly compliment the mopey dark instrumentation of Xiu Xiu. Like their collaboration with Larsen last year, Xiu Xiu prove that besides their intense lyrics and over-the-top vocal delivery, they have a knack for creating a truly creepy and unsettling ambiance. Vocals and voices are just another element of the haunting mood these two effortlessly conjure up. Like the ghost sounds of a carnival that rode off into the sunset hundreds of years ago but whose imprint has never been totally erased. Together Xiu Xiu and Grouper weave sounds that occupy some perfect space between dreams and nightmares. Highly recommended! And we only got a handful direct from the bands, so you know what that means...
Boredoms fans!! Bandleader Eye Yamataka, when not conducting the Boredoms themselves through thunderous drum-circle tranceouts, has a sideline in doing remixes for other artists, incorporating the same mega dosage of percussive craziness, throbbing rhythm, and swerve-y turntablist glitch that you'd find spilling forth from the most way-out Boredoms tracks. If you picked up Lindstrom's Contemporary Fix remix ep that we listed a couple weeks back you've heard a good example of Eye's handiwork. This Japan-only import disc brings together a dozen other of his best recent remix projects, the raw material coming from bands both known and unknown (to us). All of 'em -- except for Gong -- being Japanese bands we're pretty sure. Along with Gong, some of the names we do know: OOIOO, Wrench, DJ Pica Pica Pica (who IS Eye, right?), and Ken Ishii's Flare. And the names we don't: Walrus, Zeebra, Atami, Black Drop The Bomb, NXS, Boat, and one more we can't figure out (it's written in Japanese). Given the headspinning EYE extreme remix treatment, these artists' disparate tracks sound like they belong together on one disc for sure, he's put his surreal stamp on each of 'em big time. It's a colorful, energetic melange of tribal drumming, barnyard noises, faux ethnic exotica, techno beats, tape manipulations, guitar riffs, and heaps of psychedelic electronic effects.
Brand new disc of solo works from these two one man bands, both of whom traffic in sounds much harsher and heavier in their 'day jobs'. Ventoux is Graham from aQ faves Souvenir's Young America and Forensics, and Years is Ryan from Darkest Hour and City Of Caterpillar, both of whom seem to share a similar sonic focus here, away from the heaviness of their proper bands, both delve deeply into some sonic netherworld where the churning blackened buzz of Locrian intersects with the psychedelic bliss out of Expo 70, and the barren dusky deserty twang of Barn Owl blurs into the cavernous creep of Lustmord.
Years is up first, and deftly unfurls a shimmery electronic buzz that drifts atop billowy clouds of rib cage rattling low end, the insectoid melodies the perfect foil for the suffocating black hole bass beneath, the two delicately intertwined, creating something at once dense and black, ethereal and amorphous. The high end peels away, leaving just that deep Niblockian thrum, before being buried beneath a cascade of almost symphonic sounding high end, a woozy washed out synth heavy swirl that fades out again, leaving just that massive almost physical sounding low end, before finishing off with a haunting minor key bit of cinematic synthscapery, that's both dark and dramatic, and definitely hints at the sound of Umberto and Zombi and all the rest, but still tethered to that intense black hole bass.
Ventoux is immediately a much darker proposition, launching immediately into a churning, Locrian like black ambience, thick and undulating, softly gristly, laced with shards of melody, and wreathed in ever shifting textures, and like Years, allowing all sort of warm whirl and dreamlike shimmer to creep into the proceedings, so that by the end of the opening tracks nearly ten minutes, the sound has lightened considerably, and has drifted into a sort of sun dappled Nadja style metalgaze drift, a lush blur of softly roiling riffage. The second track grows considerably darker, playing out like some ancient sonic ritual, the sounds massive and glacial, this track too, gradually begins to build, but here instead of blissing out, the noise is cranked up, and not just Merzbow style noise, no instead it's a weird grinding choral sort of swirl, a blackened choir, twisted and tangled into a gloriously chaotic psychedelic ur-drone, which leads directly into the final 'movement', perhaps the noisiest and heaviest of the bunch. A groaning, creaking, caustic landscape of crumbling low end, thick processed burts of strangely melodic noise and dubbed out industrial clang and clatter, all wreathed in a black sonic gauze, but also infused with a strange bit of buried melody, that keeps the sound weirdly warm, and strangely soothing, the sort of sinister blackdrone music that transforms punishing blacknoise into mesmerizing tranced out black ambience.
Connecticut label Music Fellowship is doing a series of three-way split cds -- we already reviewed the second release in the series, the lovely "Crickets And Fireflies" by the triumverate of Kinski/Paik/Surface of Eceyon. Now, here's the first, and like volume two it's also a bunch of spaced out drone-on indie rock, music well in keeping with the photo of the Northern Lights that adorns the cover. Yellow6 is a British feller we're not familiar with, looping his guitar nicely. Rothko should be more familiar, and with them it's not guitars -- it's basses. Last but not least Landing work their improv-drone magic. ----* ----* Compilations : ----*
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Modern noise rock match up, one side noisy, the other side not so. The A side features AQ faves, PDX based SF expats Yellow Swans, who dish up a thick wall of corrosive guitar and damaged electronics. A serious squall, dense swells of grinding buzz, and thick streaks of almost full on white noise, keening feedback, ultra aggro super distorted synth squiggles, stuttering rhythms buried WAY down in the mix, this is the 'Swans at their fiercest and most furious. And we like it!
The B side features Devillock, aka Tone Filth records head honcho Chris Meyers, who counters with, not noise, but some dreamy blissy drones. A live recording, reprocessed and reshaped into something downright pretty. What begins as a crumbling wall of high end skree, quickly stretches out into a near static upper register shimmer, a blissy slow motion drift underpinned by barely audible slow shifting drones and distant whirs.
Packaged in a striking super simple black on grey silkscreened sleeve.
The long defunct yet still impossibly prolific duo Yellow Swans continue to exist in some sonic afterworld, like a noise rock Tupac, with a seemingly endless cache of recordings, surfacing from beyond the grave, or in YS's case, from beyond the brief life span of their group. We're not complaining, as we've mentioned in past reviews, of all the floorcore combos, the Yellow Swans were one of our favorites, and having thrown in the towel, now years ago, doesn't seem to have effected the quality of their out put, cuz their side of this split lp is a doozy. Starting of as a haunting blackened drone, al echoey effects and manipulated tapes (or turntables), hushed delicate drifts and woozy layered shimmer, that is gradually consumed by some Merzbowian distorted black noise crunch, the sound transformed into a feedback drenched industrial howl, all buried vox and grinding buzz, sounding more like Blue Sabbath Black Cheer, a seriously caustic and crushing slab of blackened electronics and dronoise blur.
Oakeater take up the second side with their ritualistic black drone ambience, the opening track a churning SUNNO)))-like rumble, softly roiling and oozing, like some sort of black sonic puddle, which gives way to something much more dreamy, a delicate pastoral bit of hushed thrum and spaced out cinematic drift, there's a constant lurking sinister vibe throughout that seems to infuse the otherwise sun dappled shimmer with something rotten and black. The side finishes off with another chunk of ominous dark drift, thick undulating streaks of black blur, wrapped around melting melodies, the whole thing like a field recording of a pallet of drone records melting in the sun, the mic stuck directly in the viscous liquid sound.
Like all Black Horizons releases, super swank packaging, striking metallic silver ink on black matte jacket, pressed on thick black vinyl, and LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!
Latest in Not Not Fun's Bored Fortress 7" series, featuring two long time AQ faves.
Former Bay Area freenoise duo the Yellow Swans check in with probably their harshest heaviest sounds yet. A full on white hot soft noise assault, totally blown out and drenched in distortion, dripping with speaker melting crumble, a seriously punishing blast of brutality, BUT, hidden beneath it all is some serious dreaminess. A simple lilting melody, a bit melancholy, a bit mournful, drifts beneath a veritable sonic shitstorm imbuing the noise with emotion and feeling. Very few folks can make caustic noise sound this pretty, you gotta hand it to these guys...
The flipside features the Goslings, a husband / wife sludge rock duo from Florida, who we have been totally obsessed with when we first heard them back in 2005. This track demonstrates they still got it going on, so heavy, so impossibly pretty, so damaged and amazing.
Outrageously distorted guitar, so much so that it's not just crumbling, but melting into a weird black puddle, the amp literally falling to pieces, so in the red, that the riffs keep overwhelming the recording device adding all sorts of alien buzz and damaged Basinski like drop outs. It's a bit like Boris or SUNN))) produced by Faxed Head, but it's the Goslings, so you gotta toss in a dorky little Casio rhythm, and some drifty throaty female vocals. So what was once just a crumbling heap of melted guitars and chunks of desiccated amplifier, albeit an insanely cool one, becomes some sort of blissy dream sludge. And then there's the weird melodic slowcore outro, which sounds like Low run through a million broken distortion pedals...
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!!!
Latest issue of the mighty Yeti, a collection of the coolest, weirdest, most fascinating music, art, culture, comics, fiction and photography. A fantastically varied barrage of words, sights, sounds, all lovingly curated, and presented in magazine form. This time around, heavy focus on art and photos and comics. Inside number 10 you'll find fiction by Stacey Levine, Miami's Jacuzzi Boys, photographs by Gracie Remington, an interview with NZ indie rock legend Robin Scott (of the Clean and the Bats among others), drawings by Saul Chernick, photographs of Memphis (and lots of Elvis's) by Ted Barron, an interview with write Amelia Gray, drawings by Cassie Ramone, collages by aQ fave Ilyas Ahmed, Disco Inferno (the band), Russian Artist Pavel Tchelitchew, and tons more, lots more pix and drawings and other fantastic weirdness.
As always the ads are in their own section near the back, to peruse at your leisure, and of course, Yeti also includes a cd, chock full of rare and exclusive tracks from tons of bands we love, or should love, or could love, and apparently this will be the last Yeti cd comp, as the mag will be switching formats, to a different zine size, with an accompanying 7" single, like the pre-Yeti mag Chemical Imbalance. So dig this one while you can, featuring jams from Noveller, The Gories, Starving Weirdos, The Clean, The Bats, Robert Scott, Jacuzzi Boys, The Weeds, Electric Blood, O Paon, Alkiobor Gignor, Jousting Vandals, Joan + Anthony, Heavenly Dreamers, Abba Ag Gargando, The Golden Hours, The Babies, Cheikh Ag Mohammed, Daniel Kroha, Derek Monypeny, Orca Team, V>L>A>D>R>M aka Viva L'American Death Ray Music and more...
Latest issue of this long running magazine, and the last actually in this particular size/format. After this issue, Yeti will be trading in the current size and accompanying cd compilation, for a more squarish layout with future issues bundled with a 7" single. This time around, issue eleven, features some gloriously eye popping optical illusion cover art courtesy of Liz "Grouper" Harris. Inside, a chat with Brian Chippendale (Lightning Bolt, Black Pus, etc.), a comic by Victor Kerlow, fiction by Kimberly Parko, Liz Harris interviews guitarist Roy Montgomery, a collection of photos by Megan Holmes, a 1978 interview with write/artist Joe Brainard, drawings by Marcellus Hall (frontman for the legendary Railroad Jerk), a series of Polaroids by Olivia Wyatt, who curated the Staring Into The Sun cd/dvd/book released on Sublime Frequencies we reviewed elsewhere on this list, an interview with modern minimalist and aQ beloved dronelord Phill Niblock, fiction by R. Foggo, an interview with Spencer from The Skaters, and a collection of French protest posters from the Sixties!
As always, all of the advertisements are gathered up in the back, in their own section, and there is, at least for one last time, a cd compilation, this one with a numerical concept based on this being issue eleven, so each artist was commissioned to create a song the same length as their placement on the cd (which is of course 11 tracks long), the first track being 1 minute long, the second 2 minutes and so forth. Apparently there was some confusion on the part of Phill Niblock and Oneida, who both contribute ten minute tracks here, the rest of the comp filled out by Roy Montgomery, White rainbow, The Dirashi Tribe, Golden Retriever, Snake Hole, Sloppy Heads, Johnita And Joyce Collins, Atole, Gospel Creators and Happy New Year.
As always, a great read and TRES recommended!
Latest issue of this long running aQ beloved music mag, and you'll definitely notice some differences this time around, the first thing obviously, is the format, the old more typically magazine sized format has now been transformed into a perfect 8" by 8" square sized mag, all the more perfect for change #2, replacing the cd compilation that accompanied past issues with a 7" vinyl single! The first Yeti single especially of note cuz it includes a brand new, exclusive Grouper track! And we now how Grouper fans are, so no need to read any further if you're just here for the single. But in addition to the Grouper track (a Dead Moon cover!!!), there's also unheard songs from Mississippi Fred McDowell (two unreleased 1959 Alan Lomax recordings as well as a track from the Tiki Men (a Duane Eddy cover!), and also included is a 100 minute free downloadable mix, more in line with the old Yeti comps, and loaded with cool stuff (including the tracks from the 7"). And heck we haven't even gotten to the magazine itself yet!
Inside you'll find the usual eclectic mix of music, art and photography, including photos from the Alan Lomax Archives from his 1959 'Southern Journey', memories of the eighties New York hardcore scene from poet Margarita Shalina, Jamaican gospel 7" labels, an essay on surf rockers the Tiki Men, African sign painter Thiam Bellou, an interview with author Susan Bernofsky, photos of abandoned forts in Russia by Nina Dudoladova, a collection of Neal Cassady ephemera (!), along with tons of other cool stuff including drawings, short stories, and the usual selection of ads all crammed together in the back, for other cool stuff you're probably also gonna want!
The latest issue of this long running aQ fave finds Yeti magazine making yet another big change. Several issues back, the companion cd comp was ditched in favor of the much cooler vinyl 7" single, and around the same time, the magazine changed shape as well, presumably to fit better with the new 7", the measurements now a sweet seven by seven. But now, Yeti magazine has finally taken the big step of going full color, and wow does it suit them. Their usual collection of weird music, strange photos, outsider art and underground comics, now look even better, beginning with the stunning eye popping fold out full color gatefold cover, which leads directly into a killer collection of rock posters from New Zealand in the seventies! Then there's songstress/soundscaper/artist/cartoonist Genevieve Castree (aka Woelv), it's her artwork that adorns the cover, then an amazing oral history of Slowcore legends Codeine, a piece that was originally intended to be included with the recent Codeine When I See The Sun box, which includes contributions from Codeine members past and present, our very own Andee, Rebecca Gates from the Spinanes, David Grubbs from Bastro / Bitch Magnet, Mac from Superchunk, Alan Licht and Brendan O'Malley from Love Child, Mike Galinsky from Sleepyhead, Lois Maffeo, Ken from Homestead Records, Richard Baluyut from Versus, Dean Wareham from Galaxie 500, recording engineer Mike McMackin, writer Ned Raggett, Bret Lunsford from Beat Happening, Tim Foljahn from Two Dollar Guitar and Gerard Cosloy from Matador Records. Also includes lots of old photos and flyers.
There's some stunning recent works from artist David Moreno, a collection of found photographs from the collection of Mark Sullo, an interview with Fursaxa aka Tara Burke, conducted by Iltas Ahmed, whose collages illustrate the interview, some gorgeous photos by photographer Sarah Meadows, a cool comic by Josh Brayer, photos of a spontaneous Mike Kelley memorial, recreated anonymously recreated a block from the artist's home, there's also a bunch of fiction and non fiction writing, a novel excerpt and more. As always, the ads are all in their own section in the back, but now in color, that section is almost as cool as the rest of the mag.
And let's not forget the accompanying 7", which this time around features exclusive tracks from Moon Duo, Karen Dalton, The Great Unwashed, and Trypes, and there's an mp3 comp as well, you can link from the mag to the website for the 7" tracks and loads more. As always, essential reading!!!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
This magazine (or what they like to call a book, 'cause it's square bound and BIG, 182 pages) is the second sighting so far of Mike McGonigal's Yeti. Yep, it's big and fulla art and writing well worth your time. Music and comix are two of Yeti's main interests, so there's an eclectic array of interviews with the likes of Laura Cantrell, Aceyalone, Richard Thompson, Ben Katchor and Steffen Basho-Junghans...plus a miscellany of features on everything from Alfred Jarry to early Blues (by Luc Sante) to, uh, unicorns!
Plus this comes with its own soundtrack, a 25 track cd compilation with Steffen Basho-Junghans (2 tracks), Iron & Wine (2 also, one being a Flaming Lips cover), Keith Fullerton Whitman, live Death Cab For Cutie (doing a Stone Roses song), Califone, live Shins, a Pell Mell outtake, Six Organs of Admittance, and loads more!!
Wow. The retun of Yeti. This makes 3 issues in 4 or 5 years, pretty crazy. Supposedly Yeti will now be a thrice a year concern but we'll believe it when we see it. Either way, we're thrilled to have a new issue of Yeti in our grubby little paws, one of our favorite music magazines for sure. Strangely esoteric but also emminently readable. This time around there are comics, photo essays, fiction, pieces on West Coast art and spiritual collage, anonymous crime scene reporting in African American Los Angeles in the 1940's, writer Eileen Myles, musicians Henry Flynt, CC Hennix and the "Electric Harpsichord", psych folk outfit Timesbold, an animated history of spaz rockers the Apes, a conversation between William S. Burroughs and Alan Greenberg, aQ faves Goldcard interviewing the Blues Goblins and vice versa, Devendra Banhart as well as interviews with with Neko Case, Schneider TM, marine / con-artist Sebastian Matthew Branno and Naomi Yang of Damon And Naomi. Whew! As always, there is a companion cd full of rare and unreleased tracks from Iron And Wine, Jolie Holland, Devendra Banhart, Fruit Bats, Colin Meloy of the Decemberists, the Apes, Henry Flynt, Timesbold, Steffen Basho-Junghans, Postal Service, Blues Goblins, the Mad Scene, Ian Nagoski, Washington Phillips and a bunch more. Here's hoping we don't have to wait years and years for the next issue!
Like an eclipse, or that comet that only passes by the Earth every eon or so, the long awaited arrival of the latest issue of the the kick ass music and arts magazine Yeti. Number seven for those keeping track. And as always, it's massive, packed with all sorts of good stuff, and it comes with a cd filled with rare and exclusive tracks from all sorts of bad ass bands.
In the magazine this time around there's new artwork from Mingering Mike (get his book, he designed his own record covers and sleeves for his imaginary bands, it's pretty fantastic), Grouper interviews Ilyas Ahmed, an interview with artist Jim Woodring, a rare manuscript from Abner Jay, an interview with author Lynne Tillman, noise poppers The Nodzzz, an interview with writer Rudy Wurlitzer, a selection of book covers from the '60s and '70s by Joe Brainard, a feature on artist/teacher/activist Nancy Dupree, awesme comics by developmentally disabled adults in the Full Life program in Portland Oregon, a feature on Jack Rose and The Black Twig Pickers, drawings by artist Bradley Earl (who also plays in Woods!), a conversation with Ripley from SF's own Wooden Shjips and loads of illustrations, photos, artwork, some fiction, and as always all the ads are crammed together in the back.
And as if that weren't twelve bucks worth already, there's that accompanying cd, with rare and exclusive tracks from Abner Jay, Dum Dum Girls, The Dutchess And The Duke, Eternal Tapestry, Crystal Stilts, Grouper, Woods, Fresh & Onlys, WOODEN SHJIPS and more!!
Originally released as an ultra limited cassette, and then available on cd as half a split with Canadian blackened doom noise outfit Ghast, and now finally available on vinyl for the first time...
Yoga is a pretty unlikely name for a black metal band. But then Yoga are a pretty unlikely sounding black metal band. So much so that we're not even sure they really are black metal. Or metal at all. But they are. Sort of.
The sound of Yoga takes the lo-fi practice space recordings of grimmest of the BM outfits, and combines it with the murky muddy noise drenched blur of bands like Wold. But then take it even further rendering their sound so muted and lo fidelity that even when they're blasting furiously, it still sounds like a busted music box or an old black metal 78. And then there's the fact that Yoga spend a good amount of their time not blasting blackly, but instead, crafting synth heavy Goblin style film music, all throbbing bass and buzzing synths, creepy minor key melodies and tons of haunting ambience. Those songs too are wreathed in a foggy night-on-the-moors sort of murk, which ties those songs closely to the more blackened ones.
The strange combination of grim and Goblin, the tripped out fucked up recording quality, the damaged arrangements, the looped hypnotic vibe, turn Yoga into something totally out there, most likely way too abstract and psychedelic and deliriously lo-fi to appeal to folks looking for grim buzzing blackness, but for the rest of you, if you can try to imagine some impossible mix of Philip Jeck, Wold, Goblin, the Skaters and some of the super weird EEE unblack bands, all produced by John Maus and Ariel Pink, then you're gonna flip out over this stuff for sure...
Another literal warehouse find, from the same place where we found the (now all gone) Leningrad Blues Machine cds listed last time, and it's another one for you Japanophiles, being a compilation released in 1994 of tracks by various and sundry bands that Ruins mastermind drummer/vocalist Tatsuya Yoshida had played in, up 'til then. Since Yoshida was (& still is!) such a crucial part of the Japanese psych/prog/noise underground, the list of bands is kinda nuts. Here's the entire lineup: Ruins, YBO2, Dissecting Table, High Rise, ZOA, Torture Garden (John Zorn's Japanese version of Naked City, also featuring Eye Yamatsuka), Gerogerigegege, Vasilisk, Malinconia, Phaidia, Aburadako, Tairikuotoko vs. Sanmyakuonna, Koenjihyakkei, Zeni Geva, and one more we couldn't figure out the English name of, plus two solo tracks by Yoshida in one-man-band mode (including the very first track, home-recorded by Yoshida way back in '83). Wow. So as well as being a Yoshida collection, it's also pretty good sampler of the Japanese underground circa '83-'93.
Obviously, in many cases, these weren't all HIS projects, the way Ruins are. Yoshida's just such an amazing drummer, that lots of bands wanted him to play with them - even the infamous masturbating Gerogerigegege! Yoshida's mock-operatic vocal stylings also come into play upon occasion (and he plays bass in one band, instead of drums). Although as you might expect, technical prog stuff is a big element of this, the range of styles is surprising, and hard to define, it includes avant-punk, gothic cabaret music, screaming hardcore skronk, industrial noise, garage doom-psych, chaotic RIO funk, and alt-alt-alt-J-pop... We're pretty sure almost all the tracks are exclusive to this comp, almost all of 'em recorded live, not taken from albums. In many cases, they may be the only recorded documentation of Yoshida playing with a particular unit. The songs we did recognize (whether live or the actual studio versions) are all from pretty rare discs anyways. And of course this out of print cd itself is rare too. We checked online, and there's places selling used copies for around $50!! So, Ruins/Yoshida/Japanese music nerds, you'd best act fast! We only found a few... And yes, we'll keep digging at that warehouse and see what else interestin' we might get lucky and discover.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Splits are always a strange proposition, it's not always clear what brings the two bands together, often the union is sonic, but just as often it's something less obvious, the bands are on tour together, the bands are pals, but split 7"s are pretty great, just speaking for ourselves, splits have often been responsible for introducing us to new bands even though we bought the split just for the OTHER band. That hardly applies here though. Again, not sure what brought these two bands together, we're guessing it's Louisville. The Louisville connection is strong between both bands and the label.
The Young Widows jam might just be our favorite from these punk rockers yet, stripped down and bass heavy, tons of space, angular guitars, draped over the crunchy buzzy low end, the bass and drums locked tight, the vocals sung spoken, long stretches of pulsing effects, a kick ass climax, low slung and heavy as fuck, can't help but think of Shellac, Tar, Helmet, all that sort of stuff. We loved the last YW full length, we're assuming this got recorded afterwards, cuz it would seem insane to leave a song this good off the record.
Will Oldham as Bonnie Prince Billy offers up his own winner on the flip, a dark and lush, sprawling bit of country blues, surprisingly poppy, some gorgeous vocal harmonies carry the song, as the instrumentation is minimal and subdued. It reminds us of seventies Laurel Canyon style strum and shimmer, there's even an awesome, just this side of cheesy, dramatic spoken word part, before a super emotional second half, again heavy on the vocal harmonies, makes us think folks into Fleet Foxes who have somehow missed out on Oldham all this time, might just be immediately smitten.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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Part two in the Young Widows four part split single series, with cool glossy psychedelic covers that will fit together into one big puzzle, once you have all four. And hell, so far, we can see no reason not to want all of them. The first one, was a split with Bonny Prince Billy, both sides ruled, the YW song in particular, we mentioned that it was way too good to have been left off the record, but here we got again, with another killer jam, that sounds way too good to be an album reject (although you could look at it more as a single A-side!), anyway, Young Widows kick out the super thick, nineties style post/math rock heaviness, all churning bass and pounding rhythms, some scary effected vocals, the sound very Shellac-y, which is in no way a bad thing, short, sharp, heavy as fuck, and catchy as all get out. Beginning to think these guys might be one of the best sort of noise rock bands going.
Teamed up here with Japanese spazz rock legends Melt-Banana, who begin with some awesome progged out rock opera slow build, all skittery drums, squiggly keyboards, epic guitars, which suddenly changes gears and the band are spitting out their instantly recognizable fractured bouncy chipmunky prog pop, this time rife with all manner of wild guitar weirdness, outer space electronics (at least that's what it sounds like, could be more guitar) and some crazy crazy HOOKS!
As always, super limited, number two in the series, another winner, plenty to keep us satiated while we wait for parts 3 and 4!
Final installment in Young Widows' 4 part split single series, the first three were with Will Oldham, Melt-Banana and Pelican, this last one is with a band called My Disco, but no matter how good the other bands are, pick these up for the Young Widows' jams, all four of em, including this latest, are total nineties AmRep, Touch And Go style noise rock rippers of the highest order, also bucking the trend of throw away tracks on 7"s, again bringing us back to an era where 7"s were precisely where the best songs by a band were to be found, and damn if these 4 tracks aren't the best thing we've heard from Young Widows, sludgey low slung bass lines, pounding math rock drummage, chiming angular guitars, slicing and arcing over drawled sung / spoken / shouted vocals, and catchy as all get out, think Rapeman, Tar, Vertigo, Jesus Lizard all that stuff and you'll be in the right neighborhood (and right decade).
My Disco do their own sort of dour post punk noise rock, stripped down and spread out, caustic minor key guitars over loping basslines and lazy drums, hazy and weary and a bit woozy, a laid back soft noise jam, definitely a good fit with the Young Widows, a slight gothic tinge, but definitely the tone and timbre make this sound like it could have been some AmRep B-side. Rad stuff.
Here's hoping these all get compiled on a cd sometime soon, but for now, you'll have to buy all 4, especially cuz they all have killer cover art and the four sleeves all fit together into one big 14" x 14" image. Cool... ----* ----* Selected New Arrivals : ----*
Volume 3 in the 4 part series of split singles from noise rockers the Young Widows. The first two featured the band teamed up with Bonnie Prince Billy and Melt-Banana, and for number 3 they go toe to toe with metallic post rockers Pelican.
Of the three volumes so far, this is the most laid back and least heavy of the Young Widows jams, a long tribal slow building almost Shellac sounding groove, all drums and buzzing bass, while the guitar grinds and scrapes, tons of space, very minimal, then the vocals come in, hovering over the spare musical backdrop, reminds us quite bit of that classic Amphetamine Reptile sound, especially when the guitar locks in with the vocals, sounds like it could be one of the weirder cooler lesser known groups in the AmRep stable. The last minute though gets rough and raw and heavy, channeling some supercharged Fugazi, howled vocals and sharp crunchy guitars, another killer jam that just like the other two volumes, sounds too good to be relegated to a 7". Or it's a return to the good ol' days when the best songs WERE on 7"s.
Pelican does what they do best for their side, heavy, chunky, melodic instrumental epic metallic post rock, and it sounds fantastic. This particular number is WAY on the melodic side, even with it's churning chugging breakdown, the main part is gorgeous, majestic and massive and crazy catchy. These guys do just keep getting better, but like the 12" featured elsewhere on this list, we still find ourselves imagining various singers doing their thing on Pelican songs. Here's a rad idea for a weirdo Pelican project. Those guys should pick their favorite vocalists, and have those vocalists pick their favorite Pelican songs, and record vocals for a record of 'vocal mixes'. Just give us some credit if it happens!
Like the other 7"s in the series, packaged in cool spot varnished full color covers, all four of which fit together to form one big creepy angular skull image. ----* ----* Highlights : ----*
Back in October, 2005, Die Stadt invited these four artists to perform at the Lagerhaus in Bremen; and consequently released this curious double seven inch / double CD in conjunction with that concert. The seven inches contains exclusive tracks by each of the artists, and the CD consists of remixes by those same artists, reworking the original material from the seven inches. For his seven-inch piece, Z'ev piece delves into the archives of his performance from the now legendary Atonal Festival dating back to 1983, for an intense mix of his percussive clamour. On the CD, Z'ev gets to mix Duncan's impeccable shortwave / drone composition, and Duncan returns the favor by transforming Z'ev's percussive work into a skittering, time-stretched blur of noise. Aidan Baker (whose name may be to familar to some from the Nadja album on Alien8 we made Record of the Week so recently, as that's his band) provides a deep driftscape more in keeping with Troum or Jonathan Coleclough; his remix of Fear Falls Burning (which is the nom de plume for Vidna Obmana) continues along a similarly dark path. Like the Vidna Obmana work, Fear Falls Burning mirrors the classic ambient works of Brian Eno, both in the original piece on the seven inch and in the remix of Baker's work. This version is strictly limited to 300 copies.
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Otherwise known as "Masada 10 Years Volume 3" this disc is the third in a series of covers discs celebrating a decade of jazz iconoclast John Zorn's Masada, the jazz-meets-Judaism project that in a lot of ways is his masterwork. What do they mean by "The Unknown Masada"? Well apparently the twelve tracks here are all Zorn/Masada compositions that have never before been recorded! The diverse lineup of contributors include the usual downtown NYC jazz supects, outsider avantgardists, some klezmer-oriented troupes, and prog rock weirdos. Specifically, this features Mike Patton's Fantomas (with easily the most frightening cut on here), Dave Douglas, Naftule's Dream, Eyvind Kang, Wadada Leo Smith, Eric Friedlander, Jami Saft, and others. Tatsuya Yoshida of Japan's Ruins contributes an amazing acrobatic progged-out track that's one of the disc's highlights. If you heard the previous "Voices In The Wilderness" double cd comp of Masada covers (vol. 2 in this series) this is quite similar, varied yet sounding "Masada" through and through (with the exception perhaps of that Fantomas cut). A worthy tribute, again.
The "Masada Guitars" disc from a few months back was but part one of Tzadik's 10th anniversary celebration of John Zorn's Masada group. Volume 2, "Voices In The Wilderness" continues the tribute, this time with two discs worth of catchy Masada covers by a host of musicians from downtown NYC and beyond. There's a lot of jazz and klezmer ensembles represented, as you'd expect, but also rock and electronica artists as well, many with previous releases on Tzadik. Some of 'em: Mike Patton, Naftule's Dream, Rova Saxophone Quartet, Satlah, Mephista, Pachora, Cracow Klezmer Band, Marc Ribot, Steven Bernstein, Jewlia Eisenberg, Tin Hat Trio, Kramer, Davka, Medeski Martin and Wood, and more. Definitely a lively crew! This is kind of the "party" Masada release as a result.
MPEG Download: PHARAOH'S DAUGHTER "Karaim" [/audio/masadapharaoh.mp3]
MPEG Stream: PHARAOH'S DAUGHTER "Karaim" [/audio/masadapharaoh.m3u]
This split 7" offers just a brief glimpse of these two SF experimental electronic artists, but perhaps it's just enough to whet your aural appetite! Both tracks are transportation themed (Zygote's "Monorail" and The Luxury Tax's "Van Conversion"), and are very much in the soothing and pulsing abstract variety. They just might stir you to sway gently, rather than get a move on. Really, it'd be great to hear both of these artists on a longer format, allowing them to stretch out and expand upon the sounds and themes (yes, transportation!) that they can only merely hint at on this little slice of vinyl. ----* ----* Compilations : ----*
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